Tag: Kitchen

Myrtle, scent of Mediterranean scrub in the kitchen – Italian Cuisine

Landings on the island. And it arrives: that perfume unmistakable Mediterranean maquis, engraved for millennia under the skin of ours nostrils.

Rosemary (also exquisite for hair health!) Cistus, broom, mastic, euphorbia and thyme (powerful antiseptic). And then he, the myrtle, an aromatic plant sacred to the gods or better to goddesses. Because if Eve covered herself with a fig leaf, Aphrodite emerged naked from the foam of the sea and went straight to a bush of myrtle to seize the branches e conceal at the sight of the Earth the its set off more in time. Fecundity, life, joy and love: what symbol can be more beautiful?!?

It's a shrub evergreen of height that oscillates between the half a meter e the three meters. TObelongs to the Myrtaceee family (syoussa dei cloves). THEis its buds appear to be micro-pearls that bloom in wonderful flowers white with long stamens to fair ray. The berries they are his children ovoid fruits, of violet-blue-black color.

THE its essential oils have various officinal properties, especially anti-inflammatory and astringents and then digestive and various others.

Although this plant is linked in our imagination to the Sardinia in particular – and with reason! – myrtle grows everywhere in the coastal regions of our peninsula and is also used in some southern recipes, in particular pugliesi and bells. A Typical Agri-food Product of the Cilento and the mozzarella cheese in the mortella, that is wrapped in myrtle leaves . And even Rome was in antiquity considered the "City of myrtle". Before the arrival of pepper removed it from his main role in Italian gastronomy.

The famous liquor "Mfraught " you can easily do it at home like a limoncello or any other liqueur obtained by alcoholic maceration. What part to use of the plant? The ripe berries, that you collect between late November and late January for the classic red version (or 'black' myrtle, of very dark berries, che begin to announce their next wither with the first wrinkles. And the white myrtle? It is commonly understood that obtained from the maceration of leaves and buds, that are harvested in spring, with a less sweet taste and an aroma more delicate and vaguely sharp. But be careful! There is also the white myrtle obtained from a "albino" variety of berries.

In the kitchen myrtle is traditionally used to flavor meat dishes. Pork first and then poultry: (hen in particular) e cacciagione, for example pheasant and quail. There are also recipes with rabbit and lamb. Typical cooking is roast but also lto lessatura: often, once boiled together with myrtle branches, the meats they are left to rest at least one day wrapped in leaves and berries.

The truth is that this aromatic plant is revealed amazing even with some seafood dishes. Unmatched i prawns with myrtle! In the Algherese recipe, which also includes other ingredients, the base is to heat the coarse salt with the myrtle leaves in a pan (at least 5 minutes) and then place the cleaned prawns on top (quickly, two minutes!). But the myrtle it can also flavor a slice of tuna rather that of another fish.

Then there are others creative recipes which provide for it. In the first courses, try the risotto and then advise you to try your hand at a pesto, made with its leaves beaten together with almonds, garlic, oil and pecorino.

There marmalade (loud!) and the honey of myrtle are delicious combined with cheeses, starting from pecorino, but also used in confectionery, for example with the shortcrust. And then: for years we hear again talk about the flowers on the plate. And why not those of myrtle, laid to embellish one fruit salad?

Carola Traverso Saibante
December 2019

DISCOVER THE COOKING COURSES OF SALT & PEPE

Stay in! Cooks from all over the world return to the kitchen (for a day) – Italian Cuisine

Gelinaz, the global gastronomic event that for years has made the kitchens of chefs from all over the world exchange, this year says enough. Leave 148 chefs at home, cooking the recipes of others. To break down the boundaries and travel with the mind

38 countries, 138 restaurants, 148 chefs, 2200 recipes exchanged, 700 hours of preparation, 17 hours of time zone. From Ghana to the Philippines, from Camanini on Lake Garda to Rodolfo Guzman in Chile, for one night, all over the world, a menu will be prepared without borders, without borders, unique and unrepeatable.

Thirty years ago the walls were demolished, explains the presentation video of Gelinaz, showing images of Berlin 1989. Today we are reconstructing them, and the proclamations of Donald Trump, photos of clashes with the police and of violence in the squares. But sometimes, things change when you are still. So this year the event that for years has led chefs around the world to cook in other people's kitchens, launches a new provocation: stay in. No one will move, no flight, no hosted by an official visiting ambassador. The party will take place at home. The cooks will not travel anywhere but their recipes, yes.

On November 1st, each chef received 8 new random recipes from another of the participants, without knowing which restaurant and which chef. The "matrix" recipes were reinterpreted in a month by the resident chef, who became a remix, unique and unrepeatable. A Situationist tasting menu, cooked only for one evening and simultaneously all over the world, on December 3rd, for the coolest event in the world gastronomy.

We eat what's there, we don't ask for changes, additions, ingredients to remove or add. Tickets have been sold on the web. Virtually all sold out within a few days. We sit and share a world experiment with thousands of others. A closed box, improvising, exactly like the chef in the kitchen. GELINAZ is a performance, it does not aim to put dinner on the table. "GELINAZ! is a collective of chefs, created by chef, for chef ”, an experimental playground always looking for new languages and unexplored collective expressions in search of the food of the future.

Everything was born in November 2005, by four chefs (Andoni Luis Aduriz, Massimo Bottura, Petter Nilsson, Fulvio Pierangelini) and over the years it has expanded to today, to 148 chefs involved and to four continents. GELINAZ has exchanged kitchens for dozens of chefs, incognito, making them cook for an audience unaware of who and what they would find in front of them. Rock’n’roll, irreverent, absolutely unpredictable, GELINAZ was the complete opposite of “four-handed dinners” and nonsense hosted, and now in fact doing vanguard once again, he said enough, and made the cooks return to their kitchens. Against the idea of copyright, of borders, of walls, of travel by train, car, plane, against pollution and fatigue, one travels with the mind, without leaving home. To break down the borders.

Here is who participates in Italy. For tickets, here

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Do all the great chefs in our kitchen recognize them? – Italian Cuisine

Do you recognize them? Many have passed through our kitchens over the years: talented young people who are now stars of gastronomy. Here is a terrific menu of memories

In September 1952 one is set up kitchen in Editorial, where all the recipes that will appear in the newspaper are made. This will be the unique prerogative of the magazine that will have great success in the years of the economic boom, continuing to be the mirror of the evolution of Italian society.

From that moment on they followed each other lots of cooks, which from young kitchen enthusiasts have become great chefs, among these: Antonino Cannavacciuolo, Gennaro Esposito, Mauro Uliassi, Heinz Beck, Moreno Cedroni, Niko Romito, Norbert Niederkofler, Davide Oldani, Pino Cuttaia, Enrico Crippa, Pietro Leemann, Isa Mazzocchi, Luigi Pomata, Massimo Spigaroli, Giovanni Traversoni, Sergio Barzetti and the longest-lived of all Walter Pedrazzi, who has worked with us for over thirty years, but does not hear them: profound knowledge of cooking techniques, he is a tireless experimenter and researcher of novelties.

To enrich the great family of Italian cuisine there are then the chefs of the Scuola della Cucina Italiana, among them Davide Brovelli, son of art, even great-grandchild, because his family has been working in the restaurant business for 180 years. He prefers the ingredients of Lake Maggiore, where he lives, which he transforms with a refined style. And the chef Giovanni Rota, technical, precise and reflective mind, professor and creator of gastronomic events. And then there is ours Joëlle Nederlants, who has been in charge of Italian cuisine since 1997, indeed the soul of our editorial kitchen and the right hand of guest chefs, has the task of making the life of the chefs easier by collaborating in the preliminary operations of preparation of the raw material. A chocolate specialist, he studies new and traditional pastries and reinvents them in his desserts.

It all starts with the ingredients, the chefs define the menu for the number being worked with director and editors, and our Joëlle Nederlants deals directly with purchases, as well as all the organizational processes in the kitchen. In the middle of the kitchen a long marble top which becomes a place of experimentation and research. The recipes are precise, tested in our kitchen-laboratory, where every day the chefs prepare with imagination, skill, a careful eye to the seasons and sustainability, new and genuine dishes.

Always in the kitchen, next to the chefs, careful editor it follows all the steps and annotates them meticulously, without missing a single detail, so that the reader finds all the elements for the perfect success of the recipe. The dishes are then tasted, to verify that ingredients and doses satisfy the expectations of palate and taste. After a meticulous work of styling, lights and shadows the recipes are photographed and from the pose hall they pass into the hands of our graphic designers who lay out the magazine combining the various services in the best possible way.